destiny it may be to wield the hammer or the
spade. Could anything be more delicate, more
beautiful? Which is the royal hand, which the
plebeian? You cannot tell. Both have the
same pretty little nails, both the same dimples
at the finger-joints. How beautiful are the
feet of a child! Mothers show them with
pride, and smother them with kisses. When
feet grow old, and have trodden the weary
earth, they are shown no more. It is only
when they are young that they are beautiful.
Pity that it is not the fashion to hide faces
when they grow old. I do not mean with years,
but in wordliness; when the sweet mouth
begins to express bitterness, and the tender
eye to gleam with the fire of evil passions.

It is not until they grow up that the
difference between the princess's baby and the
washerwoman's baby becomes apparent. The
former grows to be a fine gentleman or an
elegant lady, distinguished by a delicate skin,
by white well-formed hands, by an easy or
graceful carriage; the latter develops into a
slouching, horny-handed, brown-skinned navvy,
or an ungraceful, ungainly wench. I cannot
believe that even one-half of this difference is
owing to blood. It is culture in the one case,
and the want of culture in the other.

This dissertation brings me to the subject
which gives its title to the present article. I
have had the privilege to be present this
season at three juvenile parties, representing three
different grades in society; and I have found a
perfect equality of attraction at all. One was
given by a very grand lady, in a very grand
mansion at the west-end; the second came off in
the comfortable but unfashionable region of
Camden-town; and the third took place in a
paved court near Holborn. No less than two
hundred juveniles were present at the first-named
entertainment. It was a wet night, and when
I arrived I found two stalwart policemen
engaged in carrying fairy-like little girls up the
wet steps of the grand portico. It was a strange
sight. I had often seen policemen dragging away
dirty ragged children to the workhouse or the
station; but here they were, those rough men, in
their rough blue suits, carrying in their arms
the curled little darlings of the aristocracy,
assisting them up-stairs, that they might not
soil their dainty shoes. It was such a grotesque
idea as might have entered the mind of a
pantomime writer—a scene where the evil genii
(though they were good genii, these men in
blue) came in the shape of policemen and
carried away the good fairies.

Ah, what a sight was presented in that grand
saloon when all the two hundred children were
on the floor together, dancing a quadrille!
There were a great many little girls with
flaxen hair, combed out into a feathery fleece of
gold. Dressed in white, with pink and blue
sashes, they looked like animated chimney-
ornaments. It was a hard matter to refrain from
taking them up in one's arms and kissing
them, they were so sweetly and innocently
pretty. The innocence of one young lady of
seven years will scarcely be credited by those
worldlings who affect to see corruption in the
very cradle. Her papa, pointing to a boy in a
knickerbocker suit of black velvet, said, "That
young gentleman is a marquis, my dear." The
little innocent looked up wonderingly in his
face and said, "What is a marquis, papa?"
And when her papa explained that a marquis
was a lord, the son of a duke, and asked her if
she would like to dance with the young
marquis, she said, "No, she was engaged for the
next three dances to her cousin Tommy." Now
Tommy's father was a plain Mister, with no
handle to his name but Q.C. That young lady
will know what a marquis is by-and-by, I sup-
pose, and will like to dance with him—if she
ever have the chance again—better than with
the son of a Q.C. But she is in the full sweetness
of her beauty now, when she does not know
what a marquis is.

I noticed many little couples making love;
and the younger they were, the more they
seemed to be absorbed by the tender feeling.
The big boys were slightly supercilious to the
little girls. In the ball-room, I saw them lifting
their eyes to the young women; in the refreshment-
room, they turned with contempt from
the weak negus and cakes, and I heard one of
them ask a footman for a glass of sherry. I
dare say that youth had begun to smoke, and to
despise the companionship of his mother and
sisters. He will come back to their loving
bosoms again, when he has realised his dream
of manhood and found it a vain thing.

My second juvenile party, in Camden-town,
took place at the house of a lady, where I am in
the habit of dropping in, in a friendly way, at
any time. I was privileged to see the
preparations. When I called two days before the
event, Cicy came running to meet me at the
gate, dancing and clapping her hands and crying
out: "Oh, Mitter Timpson, mamma's going
to have a jubenile party, and she's making
such lots of pies and puddings and custards."
And Cicy had been assisting, I could see; for
her little nose was delicately tipped with
custard. I found Lily, and Herbert, and Harry,
and Franky all in the wildest state of excitement
about the "jubenile party." There was no
keeping them in the nursery; at every
opportunity they made their escape and rushed
tumultuously into the kitchen, where their mamma—a
sensible lady who distrusts pastrycooks and likes
to give her guests wholesome food—was
preparing the good things with her own fair hands.
The nurse said that not one of them had slept a
wink for three nights, nor had she herself been
able to sleep for their chatter, which was all
about their dresses, the partners they should
choose, the comparative merits of ginger and
black-currant wine, and the cruelty of being
sent to bed without being allowed to share
in the supper provided for the grown-up
folks.

For days beforehand a similar state of excitement
and expectation prevailed in the nurseries
of several houses in the neighbourhood, where
Cicy's guests were counting the hours until the
party-night. Two score of hearts beat happily